Protect Your Business With A Network Disaster Recovery Plan

The Boy Scout motto of "Be Prepared" applies to almost everything in life. Whether it's having a water bottle and a snack in your bag when a weather delay keeps you on the tarmac for hours, or having a safety pin just in case. Truth is; we never know what's going to happen next. Usually the unexpected isn't a disaster, it's merely an inconvenience. But if disaster should strike, being prepared is critical to recovering.
Protecting your data will keep your company in business after a disaster
Statistics on what happens to businesses after a networking disaster are varied, but here's a small sample of what I came across researching this article:
70% of businesses that experience a major data loss are out of business within one year (DTI/ PricewaterhouseCoopers)
94% of companies suffering from a catastrophic data loss do not survive (University of Texas)
96% of all business workstations are not being backed up. (Contingency Planning andStrategic Research Corporation)
30% of small businesses will experience a natural disaster (NFIB)
10% of small businesses will experience a major data loss as result of human error (NFIB)
Did you ever wonder what restoring data costs? According to the National Computer Security Association, without adequate backup it takes:
19 days and $17,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost sales/marketing data
21 days and $19,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost accounting data
42 days and $98,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost engineering data.
A small business network disaster recovery plan identifies the processes and procedures for returning to business as usual after a disaster. A successful disaster recovery plan should identify:
The systems and data that are critical to your business
The process for backing up and restoring your critical assets
The steps required to get systems back up and running
Will your Network Survive?
You should also ask yourself how long you could afford to be offline. If your sales take place online, hours could be a disaster; in other situations you may be able to withstand a 24 or 48-hour outage. Considerations:
How much redundancy do you need?
How would the following affect your company:
Power outage
Loss of Internet access
Loss of phone service
Natural Disaster

Can you make changes to the network remotely in the event of an emergency?
Forwarding phone lines?

What if your employees can't get to the office? Can they still work?
Practice Makes Perfect
The goal of any disaster recovery plan is to get your business back up and running as soon as possible to minimize loss of revenue as well as the impact to your customers. So, practice your disaster recovery plan. Run your employees through the entire drill, making sure the backups are working and your staff knows how to restore systems following the procedures outlined in your plan.
The story is not all doom and gloom. Companies with back-up solutions and disaster recovery plans can often be up and running within hours (depending on the nature of the disaster). But even if your business suffers the kind of disaster that keeps your doors shut for days having a plan will ensure that you know how to get your employees back to work as soon as possible. Losing your data could cost your business.
Have you had to activate your company's disaster recovery plan? What worked well? What would you do differently if lightening were to strike your company twice?

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About The Author
Dawn Brister, Editorial Director of Cisco Innovators Forum, and her team of guest bloggers interviews experts, entrepreneurs and authors on how to run a small business better. To learn more about small business best practices and the technologies behind them, visit www.CiscoInnovators.com.